Movement, Text and Visual Art in Dialogue: LAC Experience in North Macedonia
From 31 August to 4 September, the ACE²-EU microlearning programme Embodied Dialogues for Change took place in North Macedonia. The programme was developed through collaboration between the Latvian Academy of Culture (LAC), Goce Delcev University in North Macedonia and Universidad Francisco de Vitoria in Spain. Over five days of intensive co-creation, students and academic staff from different countries and disciplines – including dance, scenography, visual arts, engineering and medicine – explored how art can address a socially sensitive issue: the experiences and rights of textile workers in North Macedonia. The programme culminated in a collaboratively created performance bringing together movement, text, sound and visual language.
The Latvian Academy of Culture was represented by lecturer Ilze Zīriņa and Contemporary Dance Art student Leonilla Upeniece. They share their reflections on interdisciplinary co-creation, working in an international team, and what can be discovered by stepping beyond familiar professional roles.
Ilze Zīriņa, Lecturer at the Latvian Academy of Culture
The title of the programme, Embodied Dialogues for Change, reflects the experience on many different levels, including a very personal one for me. It was five days of intensive co-creation with colleagues and students from fields such as dance, scenography, graphic design, classical painting, engineering and medicine.
Together, we reflected on and developed ideas around a socially sensitive issue in North Macedonia – the human rights of textile workers. How can we create a multimedia performance based on textile workers’ testimonies while avoiding grandiosity, mere illustration and propaganda, yet still reaching the audience and encouraging them to reflect on values that are not self-evident or equally accessible in everyone’s life? This became our central artistic challenge. Through three different media – dance, scenography and language – we searched for metaphors in movement, sound and visual expression. Gradually, we created a shared story rich in associations, which we presented to an audience on the evening of the fifth day.
Another level on which change took place concerned the students themselves. They dared to immerse themselves in new experiences, developing unfamiliar skills and entering unknown territory. Everyone could decide how far they were willing to step beyond what was familiar. Someone found the courage to go on stage and dance for the first time. Someone heard their own voice resonate through a performance for the first time. Someone developed scenography from the initial idea through to technical details, with valuable support from the engineers. Someone dared to leave the ground, entrusting their safety to the hands of the group. Another created a haiku. And someone else discovered something within themselves that they had not even known was there. Everyone had their own boundary to approach and their own step to dare to take.
Yet another level of change concerned me personally – both as an educator and as a creative practitioner. Working with colleagues I had never met before and encountering different cultures, experiences and professional fields made me reconsider familiar ways of working, see things from a new perspective, and surrender to a process whose outcome could not be predicted in advance.
Although Embodied Dialogues for Change could certainly be developed and refined further, this journey was enriching, refreshing and empowering for me. Perhaps that is precisely why it does not feel like an ending. Instead, it sparks curiosity to look further: What is happening at other ACE²-EU universities? What kinds of collaborations are being developed in other countries? And what kinds of experiences emerge when people from different disciplines and cultures meet in one shared space?
Leonilla Upeniece, Contemporary Dance Art Student
Taking part in the ACE²-EU project Embodied Dialogues for Change in North Macedonia was a vivid and valuable experience for me. Over five days, an international team of people from different countries and disciplines worked together to create a piece combining contemporary dance, visual art and text to address the experiences and labour rights of textile workers in North Macedonia.
What I valued most was the opportunity to work across disciplines. It was fascinating to see how people with completely different backgrounds and ways of thinking could find a common language and create something together in just a few days. I particularly enjoyed seeing how real people’s stories gradually transformed into movement, text and visual material.
As a dancer, I was able to contribute my perspective on movement and space while remaining open to new ideas and collaboration. It was important to me to use the body and physical presence to communicate these stories to the audience so that they would not remain merely facts, but become something that could also be felt.
The project gave me a very tangible experience of transnational collaboration and solidarity – different countries, cultures and professions coming together for a short time around a shared purpose. Perhaps that is what I will remember most.
I am very grateful for this opportunity, for the people I met and for the experience I will carry forward with me. One thing I personally would have liked was closer collaboration with those working on scenography and text. I would have enjoyed communicating with them more, sharing my perspective and hearing more about their ideas and vision.
In the future, I would also be interested in exchanging roles and stepping into the role of a scenographer for a while. I think this would be extremely valuable in helping me better understand the creative processes of other disciplines and see collaborative work from an entirely different perspective.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Project No. 101177596. The project is co-funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia.
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